Endless Winter
by JudasFm
Summary: Sequel to Gemini Project. With the temperature on Mobius dropping rapidly thanks to Robotnik's latest plot, the Zones begin to surrender to him one by one. As public opinion begins to turn against Sonic, he, Knuckles and Tails are forced to unite with old enemies and antagonists in a race against time to stop Robotnik before every single Zone on Mobius falls under his control.
1. Inner Turmoil

**AN: **For those of you who don't know, this is the sequel to _Gemini Project_, which is the latest in a story arc that began with _Secrets of the Emeralds_. If you haven't read those, then a lot of things in this story may not make much sense. Just FYI :)

* * *

_Guardian's Log no. 11513_

_It seems like years since I last wrote in this, although in reality it's only been three weeks. I don't know why I stopped making daily entries. I guess it doesn't matter. _

_The snow's finally started melting. I wish I could say this was because Robotnik's given up, but the truth is that Angel Island has simply floated out of range._

_Tails is back with Sonic. Well, I expected that – although I didn't expect it to take as long to happen as it did – but I can't get that kid out of my mind. Not surprising considering I looked after him for about a year, but Sonic's had him a lot longer than that; hell, he practically raised the kid. And since there's no chance he'll read this and get even cockier than usual, I'll admit that so far he hasn't done a bad job of it, especially when you consider he was no more than a kid himself when he and Tails first met._

_I just can't help wondering, what use is raising a kid just to risk killing him through hypothermia? Though I suppose you could say he's risked killing him through fighting Robotnik, so maybe it balances out in some way._

_-Knuckles the Echidna_

_What am I going to do_?

Knuckles sat on the steps of the shrine, staring into space. Angel Island was currently floating over the Shining Sea, so far out that the echidna couldn't see land anywhere. Since the oceans were the only part of Mobius not being hit by the blizzards that ravaged the rest of the planet on a regular and apparently random basis, Knuckles had kept his island very firmly above those oceans. So far, it seemed to be working; with the obvious exception of Ice Cap, none of the Zones on Angel Island had been affected.

The only problem was that he couldn't stop worrying about Tails. No matter how many times he kept telling himself that the fox was safe with Sonic, a nagging little doubt always crept into his mind and reminded him that Sonic, for all his speed, couldn't fight the weather.

_Stop it. That hedgehog would do anything to keep Tails from getting hurt_.

A slight shiver ran down Knuckles' spine. Sonic had already proved _that_ quite conclusively in Robotnik's fortress over a year ago.

He could try using the Master Emerald to find them, but that prospect was an alarming one to say the least. The last image the Master Emerald had shown him of Tails hadn't been a pleasant one and had ended with him having to trek through various Zones with Sonic to rescue the fox from that slave mine.

_Your mother was right. Your attachment to Tails will do you no good._

_It certainly didn't do her any good_, Knuckles thought back irritably. He would never forget that night above the river as long as he lived, and it wasn't much consolation to think that Tails probably wouldn't either.

"Where are you, kid?" he said aloud. He'd been talking to himself a lot lately; not because he missed having company on the island, of course. It just helped him to arrange his thoughts a little better.

He hadn't expected an answer, but it seemed the new Master Emerald was going to give him one anyway; it flared brightly, revealing a snowy landscape. The image flickered there for a few minutes, then went out.

_Oh great. Just great. Mobius is facing a new ice age and the only information this thing can give me about Tails is that he's somewhere snowy!_

Maybe it would help if he shaped it a little. The original Master Emerald had been beautifully chiseled and polished to look like a giant jewel, but the replacement Knuckles had dug out of the Chaos Caves was more of a lump. It wasn't even pure green; other bits of Chaos matter were stuck to it, making it look rather like a giant chewed up gobstopper.

_How are you going to do that? You got all the rock off of it, but you know what happens if you cut into pure Chaos matter. You wouldn't just wipe out yourself; you'd take out this entire island and boil half the ocean beneath you. _

The echidna stared at the Master Emerald, thoughts in a slow turmoil. His ancestors had been the ones to shape the first Master Emerald, but if there was any record of how they'd done it, then it was probably in those caves under Scrap Brain Zone with the rest of the ancient echidna logs.

Knuckles wasn't even sure who he was guarding the Master Emerald from anymore. Robotnik was the obvious threat, but the echidna hadn't seen _him_ since the whole fiasco with those damn clones. The chameleon Scarface came a close second, but he couldn't fly and besides, he had the Chaos Caves themselves. There was no point stealing Knuckles' lump of Chaos matter when he had access to an unlimited source of the stuff.

_Except he doesn't know how to use it_, a small voice inside him whispered.

Besides, Scarface had always seemed rather disinterested in Chaos matter. Having taken Knuckles, Espio and Tails prisoner and claiming the replacement Master Emerald, he'd then gone out of his way to return it to the echidna, for reasons that Knuckles was still puzzling over. Of course, it was entirely possible that the chameleon had just wanted Knuckles out of his spines and had figured that giving the echidna what he came for was the quickest way to achieve this, but something about that didn't ring true.

Still, Knuckles didn't think there was much to worry about. Scarface had no designs on world rule. As far as Knuckles could make out, the chameleon seemed quite happy selling the jewels produced by the slave labor in the tunnels.

Raker...oh, Raker would have _loved_ to get his hands on even a small piece of Chaos matter, but Raker was dead and good riddance to him. Knuckles didn't know all the details of that, since he'd been on Angel Island when it happened, but Sonic had filled him in on the basics.

None of this helped him with his current dilemma, however; namely, did he try to find Tails or did he trust Sonic to look after him?

Knuckles leaned back against the shrine, arms folded as he stared at nothing. At first it had seemed right; Tails was back being Sonic's sidekick and Knuckles himself was alone on Angel Island again.

Now, though, he wasn't so sure. Having got used to Tails' presence, he was surprised how much he missed having someone else around. Granted the fox had often been more of a nuisance than a real help, but there was something about him that was very hard to dislike. Even when they'd first met and Knuckles had been doing his utmost to kill both Tails and Sonic, he'd found he couldn't bring himself to taunt Tails in the same way he had Sonic.

Knuckles glanced up at the posts that usually held the Chaos Emeralds. Three of them were missing; Sonic and Tails had one each and Shadow had the other one. That was alright though. Neither Sonic nor his adopted little brother were interested in ruling the world, and Shadow just used his as a cheaper alternative to public transport.

The echidna was halfway up the post holding the red Emerald before he admitted to himself that he was actually going to do it, that he was going to try and find Sonic and in doing so, get sucked back into the whirlwind that was the hedgehog's life.

Grabbing the Emerald and securing it in his spines, Knuckles glanced up at the blue skies and sighed. The break from the snow had been nice while it lasted, but he had to go back. There was no other option. He had to find Sonic and Tails, reassure himself that they hadn't succumbed to the cold like so many other Mobians.

He only hoped it wasn't already too late.


	2. Responsibility

**TheMeddler: **Heh. Well, as Knuckles said in his journal entry, it's been three weeks since the events of the last story ;)

* * *

Four hundred miles away in Scrap Brain Zone, Espio was furious.

Actually, _furious_ was too mild a term. _Spitting fire_ might be slightly more accurate.

"Listen, if _that's_ what you want, then I suggest you contact Sonic. We specialize in private eye work, not death-defying heroics. I'm sure if you want someone to stop Robotnik, he'll be happy to oblige. _Goodbye_!"

He slammed the phone down, yanked a shuriken out of his belt and hurled it at the target on the far wall. It missed, not because Espio's aim was bad, but because the chameleon had already thrown so many shurikens and kunai into that particular target that any additional missiles tended to bounce off the cluster already there.

Life had definitely taken a turn for the worse since the snow had started. Well, no, Espio thought bitterly; _his_ life had taken a turn for the worse since he'd been stupid enough to agree to help Knuckles in the echidna's damn-fool search for his sister. He'd ended up with a broken arm, the mother of all headaches, they'd failed to rescue the puggle and worst of all, thanks to a piece of particularly devious trickery on the part of Espio's brother, Knuckles had never paid him the two and a half thousand Mobiums they'd agreed on.

Things were bad. The monthly rent for the combined office and living space was three thousand mobiums. When they'd been working regularly, the CDA had no trouble meeting that quota (in fact, since Espio had taken over from Vector and stopped handing out freebies, they were raking it in) but now the blizzards were putting people off. Last month they'd taken only twenty seven hundred, and this month Espio thought rather sourly that they'd be lucky to make two thousand.

_What the hell am I supposed to do?_

Three thousand was just the flat rent; there were also utility bills on top of that. Granted they seldom went over three hundred per month, but it was still additional expense.

The chameleon picked up a pencil, turning it idly over and over in his fingers, mind working. He could make up the difference out of his own pocket – Espio lived very frugally, and the bulk of all the salaries he'd earned were still in his bank account – and last month had done just that, but he couldn't do that indefinitely. Charmy was still owed his salary for that month,

_Damn this weather! Who's going to cheat on their partner in the middle of a blizzard?_

"Espie?"

Espio looked up at a quivering Charmy, who was peeking around the door with one big eye. It wasn't safe for him to risk much more than that these days, not with the chameleon's temper running so high. Espio had never physically attacked or hurt Charmy and he never would, but still...even Vector had run for cover when the chameleon was truly angry.

"What do _you_ want?"

Since this was – on the Espio scale of greeting – the equivalent of a warm welcome and drinks all around, Charmy buzzed over and made himself comfortable in Espio's In-Tray, kicking his legs moodily.

"Why do you keep getting mad at our clients?"

"Because they want the impossible. How the hell do _I_ know what's causing this?" Espio gestured out the window to where the normally tropical Zone was buried under eight feet of snow. Since Mobians rarely reached four feet in height, this posed a serious problem for those unlucky enough to live on the ground floor. "Well, no, I _do_ know what's causing this. Maybe I should try that approach." The chameleon turned and faced an imaginary client. "Hello, welcome to the CDA offices. What's that? Oh yes, I'm sure we can find out what's causing this: it's Robotnik. That'll be one hundred Mobiums flat fee, plus double that for our having solved the case in under twenty four hours. Thanks very much."

"Yes, but Espie, I was flying around trying to get some more business an' I heard an elephant tell an iguana not to come to the CDA about her cheating husband 'cause the guy who runs it is so rude."

Espio was silent. That was a good point, and not one he'd really considered. Cheating spouses they could deal with; in fact, they made up about ninety percent of the CDA's normal caseload. On one particularly dull day, Espio had calculated that if even half the population of Mobius began taking vows of fidelity and taking them _seriously_, the CDA would go bankrupt in about a week.

"And if we can't get any more cases, we're not gonna be able to pay the rent and we're gonna get kicked out and what's gonna happen to _me_?"

The chameleon, rightly suspecting that this was the point Charmy had been working up to, opened his mouth to tell the little bee that he'd be fine, then hesitated.

The truth was, Charmy wouldn't be. Oh, he was smart, there was no doubting that, but he was also far too idealistic and naive to survive for long in the outside world. After the little bee had blown three months' salary on four pyramid schemes, three con artists and seventeen hard luck stories in quick succession, Vector had taken Espio to one side and asked him to handle Charmy's money, only giving out ten Mobiums per week as an allowance and banking the rest, an arrangement that Espio still continued since becoming solely responsible for the little bee (and wasn't _that_ a laugh, the chameleon thought grimly).

He'd kept him around, of course, partly because Charmy really did have a talent for spotting clues and also because however annoying he may be, evicting him had never been a serious option. Espio had evicted people before, of course, but there was a difference between evicting an adult because they'd either smashed up the apartment or hadn't bothered to pay their rent for six months, and booting a six year old kid out onto the streets because you didn't want the bother of looking after them.

Vector would have taken the bee in. Espio knew that as well as he knew his own name, but Vector was long dead, killed in that explosion which had taken out the old offices and a chunk of the surrounding neighborhood to boot. Did Charmy have any friends back where he came from?

Espio pulled out a kunai and toyed with it idly, flipping it over and over without really looking, in the same way that typists don't look at the keys. For the first time in years, he found himself wondering about someone besides himself.

People said that chameleons were antisocial and reclusive, living in their own colonies and viewing all non-chameleons with a distrust that bordered on xenophobia, and the _reason _that people said all this was because it happened to be true, but from what Espio could make out, his people had _nothing_ on the bees. After all, chameleons did occasionally leave their colonies – Espio himself was a case in point – but he'd never heard of bees doing so, except for Charmy himself.

In fact, if you really thought about it, Charmy was even more of a mystery than Espio himself. Oh, the little bee was very friendly, but he never gave anything of himself away. Espio didn't even know which Zone the kid happened to hail from, didn't know anything about Charmy except his name and his age, and now that he thought about it, the kid could easily have lied about either of those things. Espio didn't believe for one moment that he _had_, but that didn't change the fact that any attempts to talk to Charmy about his past were invariably met with a lot of happy nonsense and Charmy buzzing off to open some more flowers. At the time, Espio had put this down to the little bee's own immature nature and his apparent inability to hold onto a sensible thought for more than three seconds. Now, though, he was beginning to wonder if the ones who asked – including himself – hadn't been very skilfully misdirected.

"Charmy?"

"Yup?"

"I don't think I ever asked you: which Zone are you from?"

The little bee squirmed, looking embarrassed. It was such an uncommon expression on his face – Espio hadn't even realized Charmy knew _how_ to be embarrassed – that it took the chameleon some time to place it.

"I...uh...I'm not really s'posed to talk about that."

Espio's interest perked up a little. "Says who?"

More wriggling. "We...well, I'm a bee and we jus' don't. What Zone're _you_ from, Espie?"

"Lost Jungle, and don't change the subject. Why aren't you supposed to talk about it?"

"We don't."

Espio rolled his eyes and pushed his paperwork to one side. "Yeah, I got that. Is it a bee thing?"

Charmy nodded. Misery was rolling off him in waves now and Espio wondered just what had happened to him in the past to cause this. Usually the little bee was impossible to shut up.

"'S like...would you lemme come back to your house in Lost Jungle an' stay with you and your family for nothing?"

Espio paused, struck to the core. Chameleons never dealt with non-chameleons, never invited them into their lands, let alone their _houses_, and they really never did anything for free. A chameleon might give directions to an outsider, but not unless that outsider was willing to hand over a chunk of Mobiums and not unless the chameleon thought they could get away with it. In chameleon society, _getting away with it_ meant doing it with quite literally no other chameleon spotting you. Penalties tended to be harsh and unregulated; Espio himself had seen a cousin kicked half to death by three other chameleons, just for letting a gecko use his map. Any chameleon who invited an outsider into their house...that house wouldn't be left standing for long.

"It's like that, is it?" he said in a quieter tone.

Nod.

"But you live in hives, right?"

"_A_ hive. There's only one hive an' that's the only hive worth living in. All the others're _evil_. They're jus' _copies_ of the hive so we gotta attack an' destroy them wherever possible."

"And presumably these evil copies feel the same way about your hive," Espio stated.

Now Charmy looked positively wretched. "Well..._yeah_. But they're attacking us 'cause they're jealous of what we got."

"You just said that you attacked them," the chameleon couldn't resist pointing out. He was, much to his surprise and – for possibly the first time in his life – interested in what Charmy had to say. He'd always assumed bees were similar to ants. Mobian ants were completely insular, living and dying in the colony, but they'd allow outsiders to visit and marvel at the engineering feats inside the nest...and if those outsiders just happened to represent a company that needed some construction work done and were willing to pay handsomely for that work, or a restaurant in need of some good farm produce, then so much the better.

"Aww, _Espie_." Charmy swallowed. "I'm not even s'posed to tell you what I just did. Other bees're _mean_. If they find out I told you about the hive, they'll rip out my stinger."

"Would they rip it out if I were to send you back?"

Charmy stared at him, eyes so huge they seemed to fill his entire face. "You _wouldn't_!"

"No, of course I wouldn't," Espio said rather irritably. "I'm just curious."

The little bee squirmed. "Well...I dunno. No one _ever_ leaves the hive."

"What about—" Espio's apiological knowledge failed him at this point and he settled for— "flowers? You must get whatever it is you need from the flowers in order to make honey."

Now that he thought about it, _did_ sentient bees make honey? Feral ones certainly did – that was where Mobius' supply came from – but he'd never seen Charmy do it. Of course, the little bee might just not be old enough or maybe making honey was something only female bees did.

"_Do_ you make honey?" he asked, when the curiosity became too much to bear.

"Well, no, 'cause I'm a guy and making food is a job for females, you know?"

"I know you should be very careful who you share that notion with." Espio considered for a moment, then said, "But could you? If you wanted?"

"I _guess_. I dunno. I never wondered about it. It's the hive, Espie. You—"

"—just don't," the chameleon finished resignedly. "Yeah. I get it."

"Anyway, that's not why I came in here."

Espio waited and then, when Charmy was silent, rolled his eyes. "Alright. Fine. I'll bite. Why did you come in here then?"

"Well...um...you're not gonna believe this but there's this chameleon who's just turned up."

"If it's Scarface, tell him in any words and with as much profanity as you like to go _rejkik naas fa_."

Charmy's antenna drooped a little. "Um...I don't understand that last bit."

"Don't worry. He will." There wasn't a literal Mobian translation of that particular insult, and even if there had been, Espio wouldn't tell Charmy of all people what it was. The chameleon hesitated and then, because he wasn't entirely heartless, added, "And after you tell him, I advise you to run away. Very fast."

"An' it's not Scarface, Espie, 'cause I've seen him an' I remember what he looks like."

"Well, it would be damn hard to forget," Espio muttered. It had been Tails who had nicknamed the other chameleon Scarface, for reasons that were obvious to anyone unlucky enough to meet Espio's older brother. "Who is it then?"

"Um. I dunno if it is or not 'cause I never met her, but...she says she's your mom."


End file.
